


Life Coaches

by RedLaces



Series: Lovely Little Ficlets: Life coaches [1]
Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-04 22:33:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3094184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedLaces/pseuds/RedLaces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was no huge moment. Their eyes didn’t meet across a crowded room, the music didn’t slow or soften, his hear didn’t race, and to her he wasn’t the prettiest boy in the room. They were just the right mix of bored, lonely and miserable. Had they met a month earlier, nothing would have happened. But they didn’t. So something did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Coaches

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Theperksofbeingabooknerd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theperksofbeingabooknerd/gifts).



There was no huge moment. Their eyes didn’t meet across a crowded room, the music didn’t slow or soften, his hear didn’t race, and to her he wasn’t the prettiest boy in the room. They were just the right mix of bored, lonely and miserable. Had they met a month earlier, nothing would have happened. But they didn’t. So something did.

“Hey,” The girl smiled and stepped into his space. “I haven’t seen you around.” She cocked her head to the side. “Are you a friend of Pedro’s?”

“Um, yeah.” John nodded, running his finger along the rim of his cup of water. He’d been fine set up to the snacks table, just watching the party unfold and vaguely keep track of how long until the new year when this girl had just strutted up to him. He wished he had that kind of confidence, but right now he was cursing her for it. And his lack of it. Where are you supposed to go with an introductory conversation when the last thing you want to do is introduce yourself? She had to be pretty to, of course. Pretty and confident and- oh, shit she was waiting for him to say something.

“I’m his brother, actually.” He blurted. Fuck, there goes all hope of keeping a low profile. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Her eyes widened. “The British one?”

“The only one.”  
She stepped back slightly, filling John with both relief and annoyance. He wasn’t being hit on anymore, but instead he was being judged. He wasn’t the shy boy holding the wall up at the popular kid’s party, he was the creepy new brother of said popular kid. Awesome start, John.

“I’m gonna get a drink, do you want one?” He hooked a think over his shoulder. She smiled, nodding. “I’ll be back in a minute.” He turned toward the door, stopping at the last second. He turned back to her. “I’m John, by the way.”

“Meg,” She curtseyed. “Now, c’mon with those drinks! When you get back I’m gonna introduce you to some people.”

 

-

 

John fell miserably onto the couch, letting his head fall back and his empty hand fall to his side. The other, carrying two cold beers, placed them beside the couch. He watched Meg dance/dry hump someone he could only assume was her boyfriend.

He hadn’t been interested in Meg, no more than physically at most, but he thought she was a good person. He was wrong. Good people didn’t-

“She wasn’t flirting with you.”

A blonde girl stared across the room from ext to him on their measly couch. Slumped similarly, she was holding a cupcake with half the icing licked off maybe an hour ago. She wore a sky blue collared shirt, a daisy skirt and long grey socks with red bucked shoes. And he noticed all of this because she looked like she stepped out of an advertisement or an Olly Murs video clip. Except for her face, which was contorted into an expression of jealousy, lethargy, daziness and bitterness.

“What?” He replied, turning towards her.

“Meg’s pretty, and friendly, and genuinely kind. That’s who she is, all the time.” the girl lifted the cupcake to her mouth and took a bite. “You’re not an exception.” She somehow enunciated clearly through a mouthful of cupcake.

“Okay,” John scratched his head, lost for words.

“If you’re looking to hook up with someone, try Bianca, or Jules, she’s on exchange from- Wait, nevermind. Oh, okay” She winced. “Someone should tell Rose that’s happening. With her temper they’ll be lucky to get out alive.” John followed the girl’s renewed line of sight to a couple making out against a wall.

“Um,” He dragged his eyes away from that painful sight. “No, I’m not looking for a hook up. Meg was just going to introduce me to some people.”

“What kinds of people?” the blonde asked suspiciously, finally making eye contact with him. He felt a faint thud in his chest when she looked at him, like she’d snuck up on him somehow. It took him a second to realise why. She was pretty. Pretty in a much more subtle way than Meg. She was pretty, and he was a sixteen year old boy who’d spent the last ten years in two different but alarmingly similar catholic boys schools.

He mentally berated himself. She was a person, not a mannequin. He’d no right to ogle her like that. Bex would have properly slapped him, and he would have deserved it.

“Friends. She was going to get me friends.” he stumbled over his words. “Well, not ‘get’ obviously, you can’t get friends. Not in a democracy, at least, ask Kim Jong Un, and you might get a different answer.” He let out a nervous laugh. She raised an eyebrow. “No, she was going to introduce me to people, in the hopes that I would make friends.”

“Don’t you already have friends?” She mumbled, looking at the half-eaten cupcake in her hands.

“Last time I checked there wasn’t a limit on how many friends a person could have.” He hl-snarled, sitting up straighter in the couch and lifting his chin.

The girl smirked, and John wondered if there was a part of it that was genuine.

“The friends I have all stayed in England.” he shrugged. “I figured I might need a couple if I’m sticking ‘round here. You know, to laugh at my jokes, and occasionally sit in movie theatres so I don’t look like a paedo when I go see kids movies.”

She made a horrified face.

“Too far? Okay, good to now. I’m John, by the way. Not a paedo, don’t worry.” He held out a hand, hoping she’d still shake it.

The girl looked uncertain, her eyes flicking back to somewhere in the crowd for a moment before looking back at him, a determined glint in her blue eyes. She clasped his hand and shook it once. “Hero.”

“Duke?” He recalled the name from his most recent conversation with his brother.

“Yeah…” She furrowed her eyebrows.

“Pedro told me about you, and your cousin…” he searched for the name “I wanna say Beth?” He cringed knowing he hadn’t gotten that right.

“Bea” Hero corrected. She studied him for a moment, then her eyes widened and she smiled like she’d just solved a puzzle. “You’re John Donaldson, Pedro’s new brother.”

John flinched. “I’m not a baby coming home from the hospital.” he snapped, hunching his shoulders.

“What?” Her smile faltered.

The moment the words were out of his mouth he regretted them. They were petty, aimless, selfish. “Nevermind.”

He searched for a distraction. Spying the two beers he’d abandoned earlier he picked them up and spun back.

“Fancy a drink? One was for Meg, but I don’t think she needs it” They looked over, and found Meg trying to drag another girl onto the dance floor. The other girl was pulling back, her hands clasped tightly around a huge camera.

Hero looked at the beer, then at John, and for the third time since he’d walked over, she’d glanced into the crowd. Without looking back at him she took the bottle, raised her arm and pushed the lid into the flesh just below her elbow. She twisted the bottle and John heard a faint click, followed by a hissing sound.

His eyes widened, and she smile, half-smirk, half-modest.

“Impressive!” He exclaimed. “Forgive me if this is offensive but you don’t really strike me as the drinking type.”

“I’m not,” She took a swig, confirming her statement with a grimace, but swallowing anyway. “My brother just finished Uni. He taught me all of this stuff first thing back after his first semester. With soft drink, obviously.”

He nodded. “So, like this?” He pressed the bottle at a horizontal angle into the veins of his wrist.

She shook her head, putting her bottle on the ground and grabbing his. “Not sideways, it’ll spill everywhere.”

He righted the angle.

“And it’s just gonna hurt if you do it so low. Move it close to your elbow, where the squish is.”

“Technical terms.” He quipped, which earned a single yet genuine laugh.

“Yup. Alright now just twist.”

Another pop, hiss.

“Aye, first go!” Hero grinned, and again John was struck by how pretty this girl was. What he didn’t get was why a girl like her, not only pretty, but kind, charming, quirky and genuinely good company, was sitting alone, whilst the people who were clearly her friends and maybe even her family, were dancing and having fun. Without think he asked, and immediately regretted it.

Her face darkened and she looked into the crowd. For the fourth time, not that anyone was counting. And for the first time he followed her gaze.

In between two younger girls a boy who looked about John’s age maybe older, danced ecstatically, and somewhat drunkenly. John felt sick just looking at the scene, but when he looked back to Hero he felt immediately worse. She looked somewhere between mildly amused and on the verge of tears. He’d been on both ends of this before. Seeing more images of Lydia and Roary colliding in his brain.

And then he saw Bex’s face, and remembered what she’d said to him when Roary had made out with another guy in the middle of the part. He let the words pour from his mouth-

“I’ll make out with you if it will help.”

-and forgot three key facts.

  1. He’d known Bex for four years before this moment. She’d been with him through Roary, his first same sex relationship, and breaking up with Roary, his first time as the dumper.

  2. That was the kind of shit Bex could get away with, ‘cause she’s Bex.

  3. She’d been joking.




So when he, not Bex, said these words in a weirdly sincere tone to a near stranger, it didn’t quite work.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe- sorry, I was trying to lighten the mood. Dear God- I’m kidding, obviously.” He spluttered.

She laughed awkwardly. “That’s- that’s okay. Uh, I appreciate the sentiment?”

“Thank you for finding it.” He smiled apologetically.

She smiled back, but still kept looking at the guy across the room.

“So, do you go to Messina?” John tried, turning to fully face her by pulling his right leg up onto the couch.

“Yeah, I’m going into year twelve.” She said absent-mindedly, her face turning to him but leaving her gaze behind. He was so close to distracting her from him.

“Okay, help me out here, year twelve is your senior year?” He faked confusion.

“No, second last.” Still looking away.

“Awesome, me too!” He practically squealed.

She turned to him. “Really?”

“Considering school starts in a week, that’d be a pretty weird thing to lie about.”

She frowned. “School starts in a month.”

“What?” John’s confusion was now genuine.

“This is the summer holidays, John.”

“I thought it was Christmas break!”

“They’re the same thing.” Hero nodded, not quite able to hold in her giggling at his truly confused face.

John slumped against the couch, closing his eyes. “New Zealand is so weird.”

“You bought your uniform yet?”

His eyes nearly popped out of his head.

“PEDRO SAID NO UNIFORM.”

“Jesus, John!” She put her hands on his shoulders, looking around to those who were staring. “I was kidding.”

He deflated, taking another swig of his beer. “A weeping angel would give me less of a fright.”

Hero raised an eyebrow. “You watch Doctor Who?” She asked excitedly.

John made a ‘really?’ face. “Duke, I’m British. I breath Doctor Who.”

 

-

 

“What do you think of Rory?” Hero’s head leant against the couch. John sat crossed legged.

“Depends, as a person, character, or companion?” He laced his fingers around his empty beer bottle.

“Um, companion.”

“I think he balanced Amy really well. The companion is supposed to be the one you can relate to, and I think that Moffat quickly realised that fiesty, reckless, gorgeous Amy didn’t quite cover all the bases. So he brought in Rory, and used him to play out the traditonal companion role whilst Amy went through the subverted version. So that works well.”

“Nice! Alright, now as a person.”

“Seems boring as fuck.”

Hero gasped, reaching behind her for a pillow, which she found and promptly threw at him.

“Rory Williams is an angel!”

“I don’t deny that.” John shrugged. “He’s just a boring one.”

 

-

 

“How can you prefer ‘Sherlock’ to ‘Elementary’?” John waved his arms erratically.

“Elementary’s good, I just prefer Sherlock’s format.” Hero shook her beer for the last few drips.”Okay, but can we at least agree that Sherlock could maybe be written a little better??” he tried.

“Oh, duh,” She nodded. “It’s a homophobic, misogynistic, racist piece of crap.”

“Thank you.”

“But I’m still holding out for better writing.”

“That’s quite a lot of blind faith you got there.”

“Thank you.”

“Alrighty,” John groaned as he stood up. “I’m gonna grab another beer, you want one?”

She shook her head.

“Okay, do you want water, soft drink, juice?”

“Water would be nice.” She smiled.

“Ugh, the things I do for you, Hero Duke.” He shook his head, walking off. “Be back in a sec.”

 

-

 

“I quite like bands like Sheep Dog & Wolf, or Sheppard, or even Matt Corby.”

John turned up his nose like he smelt something bad.

“See, I don’t know about any of this Kiwi stuff.”

Hero rolled her eyes. “Two out of three of those weren’t kiwi.”

“Well, where are they from?”

“Australia.”

John snorted. “Same thing.”

Hero’s jaw dropped. “Don’t say that to Pedro, he’ll sock you.”

“Believe me, Pedro walks on eggshells around me.”

Hero didn’t know whether it was her place to pull that thread. She decided against it. Pedro had explained John and why he was coming to live with the Donaldsons’ to Bea, but not to anyone else. Hero and Bea told each other everything, and Bea had said it wasn’t her information to tell, despite Hero being the best secret keeper Bea knew.

“So,” Hero sipped her water. “What music are you into, Donaldson?”

John flinched at the last name, remembering a conversation Mr. Donaldson had had with him about hyphenating it onto his real last name. It had been a short one.

He brushed it off. “Hmm,” he blew upwards so his long hair quivered. “Well, Antix is good, Atmosphere, Bliss N Eso, Allday and even a bit of Drapht if I’m feeling it.”

Hero shook her head. “You filthy hypocrite.”

“What?” John faked hurt.

“Those last three are all Australian!”

“You know Australian R’n’B?” He raised his eyebrows.

“It’s all my brother listens to when my parents are out of the house.”

“What do you think?” John could barely hear Pedro call the group together and turn up the volume on the tv.

“Ehh…” Hero didn’t notice her cousin try to wave her over to count down with them.

“Ehh?” John didn’t register the only other british person in the room call out that he wasn’t going to celebrate until the whole world was celebrating.

“Ehh.” Hero didn’t feel anything when out of the corner of her Claudio kissed a girl before they even reached ‘7’ on the countdown.

“Ehh!” The room erupted in cheers, but John felt nothing but mildly offended that Hero didn’t appreciate B&E.

 

-

 

“Biology? That’s such a cop-out science.”

“Excuse me?” John held a hnad to his chest.

“Everyone knows it’s the easiest one!”

“I’ll have you know I take both Physics AND Biology!”

“Okay, well, that’s better.’ Hero tilted her head in acknowledgement and agreement.

“And everyone knows Physics is the hardest science.”

“Aye!” Hero held up a finger. “Chemisty is pretty hard.”

“Pfft” John spat. “Chemistry is the ‘fun’ science art kids do.”

Hero nodded, pointing to herself. “Art kid.”

John turned her hand to him. “English kid.

She smiled, slightly surprised. “Oh yeah? You a classic or a contemporary guy?”

“Bit of both.”

“Favourite book?”

“Don’t be so cruel.”

 

-

 

“The guy’s name is Claudio.”

They’d been silent for a minute, looking at the sleeping teenagers that littered the floor around them, stretching into the kitchen and down the hall.

“Hmm?” John broke out of his trance where he’d been wondering how the lanky, pale, black-hared boy on the stool had managed to fall asleep.

Hero jerked her head across the room, to the boy from earlier, who was now one of three people sleeping with their heads rested on on his brother’s chest.

“I dumped him two weeks ago, and this is the first time I’ve seen him since.” She stared at him blankly.

“Oh,” Was all John could provide. “Was he upset?”

“Not as much as I thought he would be. More than anything he seemed,” She narrowed her eyes. “Relieved.”

“Oh,” Man, John was terrible at this. Where was Bex when he needed her? In London, at beauty school. “Can I ask why?”

Hero breathed deeply, slumping back on the couch. “I wasn’t the person he was dating. I felt that I couldn’t be angry, or snarky, or bitter around him. Even when I needed to be. It felt like our relationship was built off the basic compatibility of our surface personalities. The minute anything got serious, or difficult, we couldn’t be anything but awkward.”

She didn’t take her eyes off of him, and for the first time since Bex moved to London four months ago John felt like someone was actually talking to him. People could look him right in the eye, lay a hand on his shoulder, even tear up a little, and the minute they opened their mouth they’re just talking around him. Hero wasn’t looking at him, wasn’t talking about him, she wasn’t even facing him, and yet somehow that was nicer.

“I was investing emotionally for a romantic relationship and getting back a basic friendship with occasionally make outs.”

She shook her head, looking at him again. “Sorry, that’s too much to-”

“My mum died in a car accident.” He blurted, gripping his empty beer bottle.

Hero’s mouth fell open, her hands twitching. “What?”

“Six months ago. I lived with my best friend for two months, then my aunt for four. About a month ago Socil secuirty found the Donaldsons’, told them about what happened. Ann and Daniel decided to keep me.”

Hero sat there, eyes wide for a good twenty seconds before running a hand through her hair.

John knew he’d just ruined any chance of a friendship, but strangely he didn’t want to take any of it back. If people here couldn’t handle that he came with a little baggage, then he left the door open for them to leave. He wasn’t going to erase the most important person in his life to make friends.

“Sorry, if that’s too much for you-”

“No, no!” She waved her hand to stop him. “I just- I mean I applied the same tone of somberness to dumping Claudio that you did to the death of your mother.” She sighed. “My problems are feeble. I’m sorry.”

John shook his head. “Don’t ever feel sorry to hurt.” He fixated on the peeling Heineken label. “The bell of tragedy rings twice for all pain: once when it hits, twice when you can’t remember it anymore.”

 

He pointed to himself. “English kid.”

Hero laughed, and he smiled because of it.

 

-

 

“John?”

“Hmm?”

“It’s January 1st.” Hero lay on the couch, looking up at the roof.

“Really, and I was under the impression all those shooting noises were the several yearly Messina Massacres.” John muttered vaguely from his uncomfortable position on the ground.

“What are your new year’s resolutions?” She asked.

“I’ve never really made them.”

“I think I want to try more new things. Step out of my comfort zone.”

“Real original Duke.”

“Shut up,” She flipped over and looked down at him. “I don’t mean like, jumping out of a plane or anything crazy. I just mean- Okay, I broke up with Claudio because I wasn’t the person he was dating, but the truth is I don’t know who that leaves.”

John paused for a moment. He looked up at her expectant face and tried to gauge how truthful this next answer was going to be. “I think I’m in a similar position. The last six months haven’t exactly been the most productive for me, but I know I’ve dealt with some shit. I just don’t know what John has come out the other end. In a way, I’m kind of thankful for the fresh start.”

Everything was the truth until that last sentence.

“Well, John. Since we’re both looking to find ourselves in 2015, I say there’s only one thing we can do.”

“Change our names, shirk our identities and escape to Australia.”

“Nope, although you’re really set on Australia, aren’t you?”

“You have no idea how disappointed I was when I found out Australasia wasn’t just a fancy name for Australia and that New Zealand was in fact a different place altogether.”

“John, we should make a pact.”

“I hate pacts.”

“Too bad. We’re gonna be each other’s life coaches for a whole year.”

“A whole year?”

“A whole year. We’re gonna be there to motivate each other, to encourage each other, and to work with each other.”

“That sounds like a lot for two people who just met a couple of hours ago.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s a new year, we’ve gotta try something new.”

“Okay.”

“Really?” Hero furrowed her eyebrows.

John shrugged. “I had other plans for this year, but someone died and I was relocated. Things change.”

“So we’re doing this?’

“We’re doing this.”

“Cool! Night John.”

“No handshake or anything.”

“Nah, I’m tired.”


End file.
